The blogosphere is alive with the sound of buzz—all about an inflammatory DVD on radical Islam being distributed to millions of households at the peak of election season.

Critics are calling the DVD, “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West,” anti-Muslim hate, or politicking, or both. It doesn’t mention or even obliquely allude to the presidential candidates. It couldn’t, since it was made in 2006. But as whisper campaigns dog Obama with rumors that he’s a secret Muslim, the DVD showed up as an insert in some 70 newspapers, with an emphasis in swing states.

The obvious question: Who is behind it?

And the answer: The DVD is distributed by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit set up by the film’s producer, Rabbi Raphael Shore. But not much is known about the group. It’s a 501(c)(3) charity, which means it can’t engage in partisan politics.

It did apparently have material on its Web site supporting John McCain, but then took it down.

Clarion has connections to Aish HaTorah, a strongly pro-Israel Jewish educational organization promoting Jewish identity and pride. Aish HaTorah has offices in Israel and the U.S.

At the same link, there is this response:

Quote:

Noted the film is recommended by a Herbert London from the Hudson Institute. According to Wiki, the Hudson Institute seeks to guide global leaders through publications, conferences, and policy recommendations. Apparently, the Institute’s “policies are closely associated with the neoconservatives.”

London ran for Governor of New York in 1990 and State Controller in 1994. He was a judge for the Hudson Institute’s “Human Events - Ten Most Harmful Books of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries:”

The Communist Manifesto Mein Kampf Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong Sexual Behavior in the Human Male Democracy and Education Das Kapital The Feminine Mystique The Course of Positive Philosophy Beyond Good and Evil General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

This is a new movement, as embodied by people like James Dobson or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, who call for the creation of a Christian state, who talk about attaining secular power. And they are more properly called dominionists or Christian reconstructionists, although it’s not a widespread term, but they’re certainly not traditional fundamentalists and not traditional evangelicals. They fused the language and iconography of the Christian religion with the worst forms of American nationalism and then created this sort of radical mutation, which has built alliances with powerful rightwing interests, including corporate interests, and made tremendous inroads over the last two decades into the corridors of power.